GEARNET: Partnering to test fishermen’s ideas

The challenges facing today’s Northeast groundfish fishermen grow bigger and more complicated each year. Fishermen are continually adapting to these challenges and, now, many are doing so with financial support, scientific guidance, and industry partnerships made available through GEARNET with funding from the NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s Northeast Cooperative Research Program (NCRP).

GEARNET is the Gear Conservation Engineering and Demonstration Network. Since 2010, the network has supported 17 projects and, this spring, 12 new GEARNET projects will get underway to address a range of issues facing gillnetters and trawlers from Maine to Rhode Island.

Capt Antonio Borges and crew put a net on board the F/V Sao Paulo that was part of a Sector 7 GEARNET project testing the use of larger mesh panels to retain haddock while reducing the catch of flounders.

Read the rest and much, much more in the May issue of Commercial Fisheries News. Read online immediately and download for future reference.

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